The Artist of the Beautiful

The Artist of the Beautiful

Nathaniel Hawthorne

A *1

n elderly man, with his pretty daughter on his arm, was

passing along the street, and emerged from the gloom of the

cloudy evening into the light that fell across the pavement

from the window of a small shop. It was a projecting window; and on

the inside were suspended a variety of watches, pinchbeck, silver, and one

or two of gold, all with their faces turned from the street, as if churlishly

disinclined to inform the wayfarers what o'clock it was. Seated within the

shop, sidelong to the window, with his pale face bent earnestly over some

delicate piece of mechanism on which was thrown the concentrated lustre

of a shade lamp, appeared a young man.

*2 "What can Owen Warland be about?" muttered old Peter Hovenden,

himself a retired watchmaker and the former master of this same young

man whose occupation he was now wondering at. "What can the fellow

be about? These six months past I have never come by his shop without

seeing him just as steadily at work as now. It would be a flight beyond his

usual foolery to seek for the perpetual motion; and yet I know enough of

my old business to be certain that what he is now so busy with is no part

of the machinery of a watch."

1 "The Artist of the Beautiful" was originally published in United States Magazine and Democratic Review in June 1844. It was collected in Mosses from an Old Manse (1846), upon the second edition of which (1854) this text is based.

projecting window ? a window that projects outward from a building; also known as a bay window

pinchbeck ? a form of brass used as imitation gold

churlishly ? rudely, grudgingly

lustre ? shine; splendor

2 the perpetual motion ? The movement of a machine that can do work forever, without consuming energy. By the date this story was written, building such a machine was considered to be a seductive but futile pursuit; it was soon after proved to be impossible.

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Nathaniel Hawthorne

3 "Perhaps, father," said Annie, without showing much interest in the question, "Owen is inventing a new kind of timekeeper. I am sure he has ingenuity enough."

*4 "Poh, child! He has not the sort of ingenuity to invent any thing better than a Dutch toy," answered her father, who had formerly been put to much vexation by Owen Warland's irregular genius. "A plague on such ingenuity! All the effect that ever I knew of it was, to spoil the accuracy of some of the best watches in my shop. He would turn the sun out of its orbit and derange the whole course of time, if, as I said before, his ingenuity could grasp any thing bigger than a child's toy!"

5 "Hush, father! He hears you!" whispered Annie, pressing the old man's arm. "His ears are as delicate as his feelings; and you know how easily disturbed they are. Do let us move on."

*6 So Peter Hovenden and his daughter Annie plodded on without further conversation, until in a by-street of the town they found themselves passing the open door of a blacksmith's shop. Within was seen the forge, now blazing up and illuminating the high and dusky roof, and now confining its lustre to a narrow precinct of the coal-strewn floor, according as the breath of the bellows was puffed forth or again inhaled into its vast leathern lungs. In the intervals of brightness it was easy to distinguish objects in remote corners of the shop and the horseshoes that hung upon the wall; in the momentary gloom the fire seemed to be glimmering amidst the vagueness of unenclosed space. Moving about in this red glare and alternate dusk was the figure of the blacksmith, well worthy to be viewed in so picturesque an aspect of light and shade where the bright blaze struggled with the black night, as if each would have snatched his comely strength from the other. Anon he drew a whitehot bar of iron from the coals, laid it on the anvil, uplifted his arm of might, and was soon enveloped in the myriads of sparks which the strokes of his hammer scattered into the surrounding gloom.

4 Dutch toy ? An unclear reference. Possibly one of several simple children's toys that came from Germany. (Germans in the United States were often called "Dutch," which sounds like Deutsch, the word Germans use for themselves.) 6 bellows ? a flexible container used to blow air into a fire (or for other purposes) by manually expanding and contracting its chamber, rather like the lungs

leathern ? made of leather comely ? attractive, beautiful; proper, fitting Anon ? Soon

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The Artist of the Beautiful

7 "Now, that is a pleasant sight," said the old watchmaker. "I know what it is to work in gold; but give me the worker in iron after all is said and done. He spends his labor upon a reality. What say you, daughter Annie?"

8 "Pray don't speak so loud, father," whispered Annie. "Robert Danforth will hear you."

*9 "And what if he should hear me?" said Peter Hovenden. "I say again, it is a good and a wholesome thing to depend upon main strength and reality, and to earn one's bread with the bare and brawny arm of a blacksmith. A watchmaker gets his brain puzzled by his wheels within a wheel, or loses his health or the nicety of his eyesight, as was my case, and finds himself at middle age, or a little after, past labor at his own trade, and fit for nothing else, yet too poor to live at his ease. So I say once again, give me main strength for my money. And then, how it takes the nonsense out of a man! Did you ever hear of a blacksmith being such a fool as Owen Warland yonder?"

*10 "Well said, uncle Hovenden!" shouted Robert Danforth from the forge, in a full, deep, merry voice, that made the roof re?cho. "And what says Miss Annie to that doctrine? She, I suppose, will think it a genteeler business to tinker up a lady's watch than to forge a horseshoe or make a gridiron."

11 Annie drew her father onward without giving him time for reply. *12 But we must return to Owen Warland's shop, and spend more medita-

tion upon his history and character than either Peter Hovenden, or probably his daughter Annie, or Owen's old schoolfellow, Robert Danforth, would have thought due to so slight a subject. From the time that his little fingers could grasp a penknife, Owen had been remarkable for a delicate ingenuity, which sometimes produced pretty shapes in wood, principally figures of flowers and birds, and sometimes seemed to aim at the hidden mysteries of mechanism. But it was always for purposes of grace, and never with any mockery of the useful. He did not, like the crowd of schoolboy artisans, construct little windmills on the angle of a barn or watermills across the neighboring brook. Those who discovered such peculiarity in the boy as to think it worth their while to observe him closely, sometimes

9 main strength ? sheer strength; strength exerted to the full 10 re?cho ? echo again; reverberate

genteeler ? more genteel: more polite, suited to persons of high status or class gridiron ? an iron rack used for cooking food over a flame 12 meditation ? deep, thoughtful contemplation or reflection on a subject penknife ? a small pocketknife

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Nathaniel Hawthorne

saw reason to suppose that he was attempting to imitate the beautiful movements of Nature as exemplified in the flight of birds or the activity of little animals. It seemed, in fact, a new development of the love of the beautiful, such as might have made him a poet, a painter, or a sculptor, and which was as completely refined from all utilitarian coarseness as it could have been in either of the fine arts. He looked with singular distaste at the stiff and regular processes of ordinary machinery. Being once carried to see a steam engine, in the expectation that his intuitive comprehension of mechanical principles would be gratified, he turned pale and grew sick, as if something monstrous and unnatural had been presented to him. This horror was partly owing to the size and terrible energy of the iron laborer; for the character of Owen's mind was microscopic, and tended naturally to the minute, in accordance with his diminutive frame and the marvellous smallness and delicate power of his fingers. Not that his sense of beauty was thereby diminished into a sense of prettiness. The beautiful idea has no relation to size, and may be as perfectly developed in a space too minute for any but microscopic investigation as within the ample verge that is measured by the arc of the rainbow. But, at all events, this characteristic minuteness in his objects and accomplishments made the world even more incapable than it might otherwise have been of appreciating Owen Warland's genius. The boy's relatives saw nothing better to be done--as perhaps there was not--than to bind him apprentice to a watchmaker, hoping that his strange ingenuity might thus be regulated and put to utilitarian purposes. *13 Peter Hovenden's opinion of his apprentice has already been expressed. He could make nothing of the lad. Owen's apprehension of the professional mysteries, it is true, was inconceivably quick; but he altogether forgot or despised the grand object of a watchmaker's business, and cared no more for the measurement of time than if it had been merged into eternity. So long, however, as he remained under his old master's care, Owen's lack of sturdiness made it possible, by strict injunctions and sharp oversight, to restrain his creative eccentricity within bounds; but when his apprenticeship was served out, and he had taken the little shop which Peter Hovenden's failing eyesight compelled him to relinquish, then did people recognize how unfit a person was Owen Warland to lead old blind

utilitarian ? intended to be useful and practical terrible ? tremendous, formidable; inspiring terror or fear verge ? edge, bounds

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The Artist of the Beautiful

Father Time along his daily course. One of his most rational projects was to connect a musical operation with the machinery of his watches, so that all the harsh dissonances of life might be rendered tuneful, and each flitting moment fall into the abyss of the past in golden drops of harmony. If a family clock was intrusted to him for repair,--one of those tall, ancient clocks that have grown nearly allied to human nature by measuring out the lifetime of many generations,--he would take upon himself to arrange a dance or funeral procession of figures across its venerable face, representing twelve mirthful or melancholy hours. Several freaks of this kind quite destroyed the young watchmaker's credit with that steady and matter-offact class of people who hold the opinion that time is not to be trifled with, whether considered as the medium of advancement and prosperity in this world or preparation for the next. His custom rapidly diminished--a misfortune, however, that was probably reckoned among his better accidents by Owen Warland, who was becoming more and more absorbed in a secret occupation which drew all his science and manual dexterity into itself, and likewise gave full employment to the characteristic tendencies of his genius. This pursuit had already consumed many months. 14 After the old watchmaker and his pretty daughter had gazed at him out of the obscurity of the street, Owen Warland was seized with a fluttering of the nerves, which made his hand tremble too violently to proceed with such delicate labor as he was now engaged upon. *15 "It was Annie herself!" murmured he. "I should have known it, by this throbbing of my heart, before I heard her father's voice. Ah, how it throbs! I shall scarcely be able to work again on this exquisite mechanism to-night. Annie! dearest Annie! thou shouldst give firmness to my heart and hand, and not shake them thus; for, if I strive to put the very spirit of beauty into form and give it motion, it is for thy sake alone. O throbbing heart, be quiet! If my labor be thus thwarted, there will come vague and unsatisfied dreams, which will leave me spiritless to-morrow." *16 As he was endeavoring to settle himself again to his task, the shop door opened and gave admittance to no other than the stalwart figure which Peter Hovenden had paused to admire, as seen amid the light and shadow of the blacksmith's shop. Robert Danforth had brought a little anvil of his own manufacture, and peculiarly constructed, which the young artist

13 custom ? regular business patronage (as in customers) 15 thou shouldst give firmness to ? you should make steady 16 bespoken ? custom-ordered

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